Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadium

Atatürk Olympic Stadium is located in Ikitelli, an outskirt of Istanbul, and is the highest-capacity stadium of Turkey. Construction started in 1999 and finished by 2002. It was built for Turkey’s Olympic Games bid and cost about 130 million TRY (100 million USD).

With its 81,283 people capacity and Olympic size, it was granted the “5-star sport complex” title by UEFA in 2004, enabling it to host finals of UEFA events. The stadium is also certified by the IAAF and IOC for athletic competitions. Atatürk Olympic Stadium has hosted some European athletic competitions. Galatasaray SK played its home games at Atatürk Olympic Stadium during the 2003-2004 football season, due to the bad condition of their own venue, Ali Sami Yen Stadium, and this was criticized by other teams. Galatasaray eventually returned to Ali Sami Yen for the 2004-2005 season, although the renovation of its ground into a modern facility is still in progress. Sivasspor also played its home games at Atatürk Olympic Stadium due to the bad conditions at their original hometown ground.

The 2005 Champions League final between A.C. Milan and Liverpool F.C. was played on May 25, 2005 at Atatürk Olympic Stadium. In the match, Liverpool were trailing 3-0 at half time but made the most dramatic comeback in the tournament’s history, scoring 3 goals in just 6 minutes to bring the game to 3-3 by the end of normal time. No more goals were scored in extra time, bringing the game to penalties. Liverpool went on to win the shoot-out 3-2.

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